A number of ethical issues this week dealt with technology issues and setting boundaries. What happens when the algorithms become too efficient and lead companies to actions that may be “too human” or inadvertently racist?
Mark McClennan, APR, Fellow PRSA
Mark W. McClennan, APR, Fellow PRSA, is the general manager of C+C's Boston office. C+C is a communications agency all about the good and purpose-driven brands. He has more than 20 years of tech and fintech agency experience, served as the 2016 National Chair of PRSA, drove the creation of the PRSA Ethics App and is the host of EthicalVoices.com
Joining me on this week’s episode is Ron Culp, the director of the Public Relations and Advertising Masters Program at DePaul University.
Ron discusses a number of important topics, including:
1) What to do when asked to make absurd and misleading claims
2) Why PR professions need the industry to have their back
3) Where companies make mistakes in countering disinformation internally
4) How to make your company attractive to potential employees
Claims of ballot fraud and lists of Trump supporters for potential retaliation are not the only hot ethical issues of the week.
Since those have received so much attention, I wanted to highlight some other interesting issues.
Helio Fred Garcia, President of Logos Consulting Group discusses a number of important ethics issues including:
1) When and where do you draw the ethical line?
2) How structures and clear protocols make courage less necessary in ethical dilemmas
3) What can we learn from Bernays’ definition of public relations?
4) What are some positive ethics lessons from Goldman Sachs
5) Three key elements in determining the “right” thing to do
Every media outlet and social channel is blanketed with Presidential election coverage. This blog will give you a break from it all. We will look at ethical issues of the week that have nothing to do with elections: philotimy, racism and disclosure.
Neil Foote, the CEO of Foote Communications, and the President of the National Black Public Relations Society, discusses a number of important ethics issues, including:
1) Why identifying an ethics problem is not enough
2) The power of truth, without embellishment, to drive ethical action
3) How to fight misinformation and disinformation
4) Why celebrating success is not enough to drive diversity
With the US elections just a few days away and the divisive, negative rhetoric on all sides being at what seems to me to be an all time high, I thought this week it might make sense to take a look at the oft-overlooked virtue-based approach to ethics.
Keith Green, assistant professor at Montclair State and former vice president of B2B communications and partnerships at Guinness World Records, discusses:
1) DEFG: Four common reasons for ethical failures
2) The challenge of living in the world of now
3) Ethics issues he has observed in sports public relations
This week many of the ethics concerns for public relation and communications professionals are about disinformation, misinformation and deepfakes.
Bestselling marketing and CX author, and inspirational speaker Jay Baer discusses the ethics lessons you can learn from beer, football and food.
Specifically:
1) How to ethically work for competing companies
2) The rampant issue of IP Theft
3) Restaurants’ ethical dilemma: COVID disclosure